So I had yet another action packed, filled to the brim, full of adventure weekend. To give you an idea of the craziness that ensued I've compiled a list. A list of words that descirbe the weird, wacky, and at times hilarious moments that went down. Here is goes: GIANT hill, slippers, zoo, orangutan, castle, sloppy kisses, kids, storybooks, castle, para-gliders, nausea, old men, and mysterious SUV.

I'll begin with Friday; the day of fun, friends, and freezing. It was our last day with the Octava class which was really quite sad. I enjoyed my time with them and made a lot of friends, friends who invited me out on Friday night. Three people in my class were turning 18 that day too so that just added to the adventure. I met up with some of the girls from my class at the bus stop with no idea what I was getting myself into to be honest but happy all the same to be doing something with people my own age. From the bus stop we continued on to a park in the middle of the city. You must remember though, that by this time it is already dark and rather COLD! because it is almost October. So all of us girls made it to the park in one peice shivering our fanny's off only to find a whole bunch of other people equally cold. From here the girls, being the logical ones, suggested we head to the city centre where we could go inside and warm up. However, little did I know how difficult it is motivate a group of slightly intoxicated teenagers to relocate. After 45 min of useless attempts to convince them it would be much warmer if we just walked a couple of blocks down the road, we left. We had had enough of freezing our butt off and instead had a wonderful evening in a cute little pub in the city centre. And that takes us to the end of Friday.

Saturday was probably the best day of all. It was another ridiculously amazing day trip with my family. We went out to Bojnice, which is a small city about an hour away from Zilina, which is known for two things; it's zoo and it's castle (strange combination I know). But I am getting ahead of myself here, there is a funny story to be told. On our way we stopped at a small village where a traditional slovak music festival was taking place. We got out, looked around, and took in all the sights and sounds. There was a huge pot over a fire, where they were preparing goulash (beside the pot was quite literally a mountain of potatoes! I've never seen so many in my entire life!), and many men in traditonal slovak dress holding long pipe like instruments. The slovak dress is beautiful with many colors and detailed embroidary, I loved looking at it all. There was one set of costumes I couldn't take my eyes off of in particular because it was a group of old men in belly shirts. Admittedly they were beautifully embroidered, traditonal slovak belly shirts, but belly shirts all the same! I thought it was funny and apparently I looked a little too long because before I knew it I was being ushered over and squished between these two large slovak men for a picture. I liked the idea, but was feeling slightly uncomfortable at how close we were when one of them planted a big sloppy kiss on my cheek! It was hilarious! I couldn't even believe it! Once I recovered and my face lost a few shades of red, I was released and found myself on the road again with my family.
In order to get to Bojnice we had to drive up these extraordinarily narrow, windy, moutain roads, which are bad enough on their own, let alone when you are in Slovakia where the speed limit is somewhere around 140km/h and they all drive like maniacs. I got soooooooo soooooooo soooooooo car sick, to the point where I felt like i was going to barf again. I was reliving the horrors of my arrival and it was not pleasant! So apparently I wasn't doing a very satisfactory job at hiding my nausea from my family since at one point my cousin turns to me and says "did you drink a little to much last night?" to which I reply "what?!". Then it hit me, I had been out with friends, got home late, in Slovakia everyone drinks (I mean everyone).... they thought I was hung over! So just to reassure you Rotarins, I wasn't. So then I had to go on to explain to them that I was car sick because I get motion sickness really easily, and I have no idea why and I don't know any other grown adult who gets car sick but I do and it's a pain in the arse! Good times.

So we finally made it to the castle and it was absolutely stunning! I loved it! We took a guided tour and I got to see all the beautiful architecture, tapestries, furniture, and art. It really was amazing. I took lots of photos and I will put as many as I can on here and all of them on Facebook.
After the castle it was Zoo time! This was really fun because the zoo was huge! It was like a hike through the wilderness and half way up a mountain just to see all the exhibits. Okay and my favorite part of the zoo was.....the orangutan! OH MY GOD it was the cutest thing I have EVER seen! Not the big orangutan but the four month old baby one! I wanted to scoop it up and take it home with me!
Once we were finished with the zoo we headed on home and I went to a movie with my friends from school in the cinema. It was really fun but guess what we saw? The Ugly Truth! It's really funny because here it just came out but I saw it in theatres in Canada months ago! So I saw it again and it reminded me of just how good a movie it is. I loved it.
After the movie I slept over at Mariely's house which was super fun too because we had a total girls night. We ate chocolate and cold pizza and cake and watched House. It had Spanish subtitles so I made her day. She was so excited to be able to watch it and acutally understand everything that was going on. It was really great.

Sunday the day of heat, exhaustion, beauty. Mariely and I woke up closer to afternoon than morning and were enjoying ourselves while lazing in bed staring at the ceiling when her mom came in. She informed us (in slovak) that we were to get dressed and that someone (we didn't understand who) was going to pick us up in 45 minutes. She also said something about a hill but nothing else. We agreed and went about preparing ourselves for the day. Once we were ready her mother ushered out the door and pointed at the end of the road, motioning for us to go there, so we did, still not knowing exactly what was going on. Shortly after a lady in a mysterious SUV (with paul, the other exchange inside) pulled up beside us and motioned for us to hop in. We quickly got in and before we could even sit down we were speeding down the road. It turned out that the mystery women was Paul's host mom, soon to be my host mom so it was nice to get to meet her. Within minutes we arrived at the base of this giant hill. I would dare say it was a mini moutnain but all the same it was beautiful. At least I thought it was beautiful until I found out we were going climb it....ughhhhh. So up we went, sweating in the heat, and slopping around in my highly impractical slip ons. After an arguous climb we made it to the top and much to my surprise it was worth the climb. IT was soo incredibly beautiful up there! And of course I didnt bring my camera because nobody told me where we were going,but the others had their's so I will steal their pictures no worries. You could see the whole city from up there and we also got to watch a bunch of people go paragliding off the side of the hill. It was so cool and they made it look so easy! Paragliding is now officially on my list of things to do before I die. The view was indescribable. Simply breath taking.

So that brings my weekend to a close. I'm sorry that my post is pretty much a novel but I just don't wanna miss anything! and I LOVE to share! So more will come. I promise!

love,

p